Many commercially available personal care compositions attempt to provide skin-conditioning benefits. These personal care compositions are aqueous systems that comprise benefit agents in combination with surfactants. Although these personal care compositions provide both conditioning and cleansing benefits, it is often difficult to formulate a product that deposits sufficient amount of benefit agents on the skin during use. The low deposition of the personal care composition is caused by the interaction of the benefit agents and the surfactants within the personal care composition. Generally, the benefit agents are emulsified by the surfactant leaving only a small amount of benefit agents available for deposition.
Several approaches have been taken to combat the emulsification of the benefit agents by surfactants in personal care compositions. One approach is to raise the rheology of the benefit agents; however, the increased rheology negatively impacts the skin feel due to the tackiness of the benefit agents. Another approach is to add large amounts of benefit agents to the personal care compositions. In some instances, the raised level of benefit agents negatively affects the stability of the personal care compositions, as well as, the speed of lather generation, the total lather volume and the overall product performance. A third approach is to add cationic polymer to the personal care composition. Generally, the addition of the cationic polymer does not increase deposition of the benefit agent due to the competing mechanisms of the cationic polymer and the benefit agent.
Accordingly, there is an unmet need for a stable multiphase personal care composition that provides significantly enhanced benefit agent deposition without negatively impacting lather performance and after-use skin feel. It is the object of present invention to fulfill this unmet need.